


Signal to Noise

by karanguni



Series: Nasdack [2]
Category: FFVII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Real World, M/M, Stockmarket AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-01
Updated: 2009-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/pseuds/karanguni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rufus, in Chicago.  Set when Rufus gets shipped off to get out from under Daddykins' legs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Signal to Noise

Rufus is not good at detaching, Rufus is not good at letting go, Rufus is not good at accepting that things can be taken from him. He lands at O'Hare at two in the morning, a black car reception waiting at the taxi bay. Some anonymous they take his bags; he flashes them a humourless smile, then flags a taxi. His phone is turned off.

Rufus gets to the apartment that his father has so generously gifted him with at three oh three, god damned time zones pushing the hour past through to four o clock Eastern somewhere else under the same sky. Walking down the private driveway, he looks like a nightmare. The windy city sends his layers billowing, a coat and a vest and a shirt and a tie that he put on the previous morning, thinking of nooses and the man he'd like to see at gallows, strung up on the front page of the Times, the lead in the business section reading anything but EXILE.

His key turns in the lock, the grating metal a scream in a world universally silent after diurnal New York nights. The alarm system wails once before Rufus stabs a code onto the dimly lit keypad. The world is dark and endlessly empty, stretching out into two bedrooms a study a living room a prison cell. Rufus flings his carry-on into a corner, his portfolio, a passport and credit cards and the matriculation papers which present him into another system, his father's name burned onto every single fucking thing, ess aitch ai en are ay.

He wrenches the tie off in half a motion, drops his coat onto the cold floor. It clatters when it falls. Rufus bends to rescue his cell phone from a pocket. In the dim glow of the lights outside filtered past his windows, Rufus can see his own face in the reflection of the blank screen. It takes him a moment to consider containing his rage before he snarls, silently, and flips it on. The search for a signal echoes like noise, static connection to his old world. His father's lackeys have bleated for him thrice, four times, and on top of that messages that Rufus deletes without reading.

Rufus hits a number on speed dial and presses the mobile to his ear as he walks towards one of the open bedrooms. It rings once, twice, three times, four fucking forsaken times before Tseng picks the fuck up. 'What is it, Rufus?' comes the scrape of Tseng's voice, so damned different. Rufus closes his eyes. It's better. With Chicago blocked out, there's nothing but the unruffled, expectant tonality of Tseng's familiar timbre. 'I assume you've landed. Safely.'

'You know,' Rufus says, his voice a low murmur crawling up his throat, so many choice words but none that he can direct at Tseng, none that he can say. 'You know, fuck what my father thinks.' He doesn't open his eyes. He works off the rest of his tie by feel, by instinct, by remembering the way the triangle used to sit against the hollow of Tseng's throat. It slithers to the ground. 'Is exile the best he can do? Sending me to Chicago to study impractical theory is the best that he can do?' The first button of his vest, then the second.

There's a rustle and shift of fabric, transliterated as static. Tseng, when he speaks, sounds more awake. His voice either sets a fire alight under Rufus or turns his blood to ice. There's no deciding. 'No use in anger,' Tseng says, his voice like novocaine. 'He does this to infuriate you. It's working.'

Rufus pushes his knuckles up under his chin; they rub, bump bump bump, against the phrase of his neck. He only swallows when he feels that little band of metal kiss the underside of his throat. 'You're wrong,' Rufus says, thickly.

'Am I?' Tseng asks.

Rufus drops his hand, dragging it down the layers of his open vest, the thinness of his shirt. His belt buckle is solid, sharp, easy to wrench open. 'About anger. You're wrong, and my father's wrong.'

'You're angry.'

'I'm furious.' Rufus grits his teeth. His nails bite into skin, then slide lower.

Something in the air changes, as though Tseng can tell.

'Rufus.'

'When I'm done with this, I'm coming back to spit in his face and piss on his grave,' Rufus says, quiet, steady, serious. 'When he runs out of ways to pin me to walls and cloister me in universities, I'll come home and burn his goddamned world down to ashes and dust and dirt.' His breath hitches. 'I won't wait,' he says, breathing hard. 'I won't care for courtesy,' he laughs, tight, 'for composure, he chokes out, 'for corporate responsibility.' The next inhalation dissolves into a moan. 'And you'll come with me. You'll do it with me.'

'Will I?'

'You'll be right there with me,' Rufus snarls, the fingers of his left hand digging into the plastic of his phone. His legs feel ready to buckle; he won't kneel for this, for anyone. Stumbling, he feels his back hit a wall. 'You'll do this with me, for me, alongside me, because there's a god - damned - difference between imperium and empire. Fuck,' Rufus pants.

'I've no desire to rule anything the way you do, Rufus,' Tseng articulates.

'They made you sign away your life on a dotted line, didn't they?' Rufus snaps his head back; he's strung too tight to feel the pain from where it contacts with the wall. 'In exchange for money you don't want and a lifestyle you don't lead, doing shit that steps all over that archaic sense of - ha-- honour of yours, and I'm - opening the fucking door and asking you to step through and do something other than lie down and take it. Take it. This time, this one way forward. Take it,' Rufus growls into the mouthpiece, voice going to pieces. 'Take it.'

'Are you asking me?'

Rufus can barely speak. 'Does it - sound like I'm -- asking you?'

'It sounds,' Tseng says, 'like you're begging me.'

'Maybe I am,' Rufus laughs, shattered sounds as he holds on, holds on. 'Or maybe I'm fucking telling you.' And Tseng makes a noise at the back of his throat that Rufus has never heard before, and he realises that Tseng, Tseng too, Tseng -- 'Fuck,' Rufus swears, legs going to water and world dipping, vertigo and yes, yes, yes, yes, fuck, fuck.

Rufus wipes his hand on his shirt while he waits for his chest to stop heaving. Tseng's not nearly as loud as he is when he comes, but Rufus knows the meaning of the abrupt, pregnant silence and the deep sigh that follows. 'I'll call you tomorrow,' he says, eventually.

'No,' Tseng tells him.

'When, then?'

'When you have a plan, Rufus Shinra. Call me when you have a plan.'

Rufus smiles when the dial tone screams a challenge into his ear, and then he opens his eyes.


End file.
